The poem was written by Jenifer Toksvig and was inspired by stories and first-hand testimonies from refugees forced to flee their homes and items they took with them.

One of the sources for the poem was Brian Sokol’s photography project, ‘The Most Important Thing,’ made in collaboration with UNHCR. Many of Brian’s photos, along with firsthand accounts from the refugees he photographed, are featured in the film.

Released exclusively on Facebook, the film urges people to sign the #WithRefugees petition to help ensure refugees have the basics to build back their lives – an education, somewhere safe to live and the opportunity to work.

We are 60 diverse young people from all continents of the world who met in Rustler’s Valley, South Africa from November 16 to 19, 2014 to discuss the state of civil society around the world and consider our role as young people within it. We do not claim to speak for all youth, or for the diverse views from within our own countries, but rather we seek to lend our voices to the on-going debate about the role of civil society in the social, political and economic transformation of the world. We also want to respond to and further develop the conversation begun by the Open Letter for Activists as young people engaged at grassroots, national and international levels.

Increasingly, the face of civil society around the world is a young one. Yet, we recognize much may be learned from other generations; their struggles, histories and lessons. Although we will face many of the challenges of the future, we believe that with intergenerational partnerships and a shared responsibility, we can transform civil society and therefore global society.

Current strategies to address restrictions on civil society space are failing. To create the necessary space at the national level, we should develop radical tactics to mobilize non traditional civil society groups, create platforms for international solidarity, and develop safe spaces where we can come together in a conducive environment to address these issues.

After much reflection, we collectively arrived at four primary topics of concern to those present: race, gender and sexual orientation; democratization of our own organisations and power structures; reform of relationships between civil society and donor organisations; and the divide between grassroots movements and civil society organisations (CSOs).

Eliminating discrimination: Race, gender and sexual orientation

As youth, we witness and experience the on-going reality of discrimination in civil society based on race, gender, and sexual orientation. We call on all sectors, especially media, governmental, non-governmental, and religious organizations, and the private sector to acknowledge and combat discriminatory practices. Civil society should lead the way by respecting diversity and completely eliminating all forms of discrimination from our own environments.

Democratization of CSOs and power structures

As youth, we acknowledge that current political, social and economic systems and organizational structures favour the few, not the many. We emphasize our duty to democratise:

Public dialogue through the use of inclusive and accessible language to broaden participation and break down the hierarchy among civil society and the communities we seek to serve.

Structures of power that prevent us from collaborating across issues and themes to establish civil society-wide avenues of influence and the elevation of our collective voice.

Access to intergovernmental and civil society processes for local and grassroots social movements.

Relationships between large civil society organizations and grassroots movements through the adoption of and respect for higher ethical standards.

Additionally, we should establish new methods of ensuring transparency, through the development of:

Conflict of interest indices;

Organization-wide gender parity measures;

Reporting on executive salaries and board fees;

Cooperation indices, and;

Mechanisms that ensure the full integration of all stakeholders into decision-making processes, including volunteers.

As youth, the driving force of our work is our own vision, passion and values. To better serve those with whom we work, we must question the current relationships between donors and recipients. We pledge to:

Acknowledge the need to be financially autonomous through self-sustainability.

Mobilize unions through membership fees as a way of engaging our own constituencies to ensure their ownership and responsibility in our work.

The increasing importance of grassroots actors, both formal and informal, is undeniable in today’s world. Gone are the days where NGOs may claim to represent the “voices” of communities. Our communities can and do speak for themselves and stand on their own work. They invert power structures through community-driven development and building people-power globally. We believe in the following tenants:

Access. NGOs should work to access, identify and develop leaders and existing solutions within communities. Serving as enablers, we can support accessibility to and sharing of the core resources needed to foster greater impact.

Sustainability. NGOs should promote capacity-building and community ownership to both catalyse the emergence of new grassroots groups and ensure existing groups continue their work self-sufficiently and sustainably. Instead of providing ready-made solutions, the focus should be on connecting likeminded leaders in decentralized networks of information sharing.

Measuring success. NGOs should work with communities to develop new, community-supported, ways of measuring and interpreting success around the values of sustainable change and community ownership.

Reimagining the playing field. NGOs should work to reorient all funding systems to align with these tenants and the under acknowledged needs of grassroots organizations.

As young people fighting for social justice, we make these criticisms and suggestions with the hope that they will contribute to a reimagining of the role, vision and methods of civil society. We recommit our lives to the struggle against inequality, poverty, environmental degradation and all injustices in whatever shape they assume.

We perceive the vision of our letter as an invitation to all—including young people and those in decision-making positions—to take immediate action to transform civil society. Let this letter stand not only as our message to civil society, but also as a broader commitment to move forward with confidence and purpose towards a just, sustainable and peaceful world.

[EN] Around the world, people from all paths of life are gathering, organizing and taking the streets to put show global leaders we had enough!

We can no longer afford to passively wait and watch our homes flooding, crops disappearing and natural disasters becoming the norm, while they spend years discussing our future in air-conditioned rooms!

It is time to disrupt! And raise together to demand global leaders for real actions, instead of comforting words.

Check out the People’s Climate March website and learn about actions happening around your hood! And please, do get involved!!!! This is the greatest issue of our lifetimes and it gotta need all and each one of us to disrupt this climate chaos!

If you are not able to get out there, and join the over 2000 actions happening in over 160 countries. You must invest your time in learning more about the issue and informing your friends, your family and your community, a good start is the movie Disruption (by PF Pictures) just launched, which tells the story of the making of the march, as well as the global climate movement! (legendas em português)

Martin reminded the delegates attending the PrepCom1 about the importance of engaging and listening to youth, children and future generations since they are the ones who will inherit this new habitat agenda being discussed, and will be directly affected by decisions taken today.

He also reminded us that in order to tackle the challenges we face today, we really will need a tailored and ambition new development agenda. The way we plan our existing cities and address the issue of new cities will determine what SDGs are fulfilled and who is left behind.

The agenda needs to go beyond its focus on just Urban, and focus on an agenda for human settlements everywhere, and it needs to be inclusive of everyone, specially women and young people.

Finally, Martin called attention of all the government delegations attending the PrepCom1 that Youth Participation must not be a one off event. That we can no longer accept hand picked youth participation discussing topics defined by others as youth issues. Youth participation needs to be representative, independent and with emphasis on the whole political process.

The new urban agenda needs to maximise our holistic human development and minimise our ecological footprint. And the only way to achieve that is through dialog, participation and partnerships with the people living in the city/ these places, including youth and children. Nothing about us without us.

Coca-Cola finds a creative way to connect the people of India and Pakistan.

In March 2013, Coca-Cola set out to break down barriers and create a simple moment of connection between two nations — India and Pakistan. The initiative “Small World Machines” provided a live communications portal between people in India and Pakistan and showed that what unites us is stronger than what sets us apart. The key to engaging with each other through the machines was simple: people in India and Pakistan could complete a task, like touching hands, drawing peace, love, and happiness symbols — together.

And it’s super exciting to see that warriors from around the world are coming together and speaking up in solidarity with our Pacific Islanders! Want to know who are the warriors jumping into this fight!?

Check out: http://350dotorg.tumblr.com/ And meet the common people, that just like our warriors had enough.. and decided to take on this fight against climate change!

Obviously, I’m also in this fight alongside with the Pacific Warriors!

Fighting alongside #Pacific Warriors against Climate Change.. all the way from Brazil!

Today (10th of December!) is the International Day of the Human Rights!

And while this is a day to celebrate, still there are lots of things we need to improve.. daily the basic human rights of numerous people are violated or neglected. And this really needs to change!

First step to change that, is to know your rights! Your very on basic human rights, so you are able to keep governments and institutions accountable and to fight and ensure your rights and the rights of every individual in this planet is respected!

Post navigation

::: João Felipe Scarpelini :::

[EN] I'm a full-time dreamer and activist! I engage with passionate and creative people to create tools, opportunities and capacity that empower individuals and their communities to be the change they want to see in the world!

About me…

I'm a full-time dreamer and activist! I engage with passionate and creative people to create tools, opportunities and capacity that empower individuals and their communities to be the change they want to see in the world!